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A BOOK whose title includes a rhetorical question seldom leaves
you in any doubt about the answer.

This collection of essays on the Australian media will leave
both practitioners and consumers thoroughly depressed, the more so
because most, if not all, of the contributors believe that not only
is "media" a singular noun, but that it is worse than a failure: it
is, to use a more technical term, well and truly stuffed.

And no solution is in sight.

Commercial television and radio, popular magazines and the
tabloid press have long since given up as purveyors of the serious
information to become mere entertainers, and are now engaged in a
breakneck race to the bottom of even that dubious market.

"Quality" journalism is now largely confined to the Fairfax
papers and the ABC, with the latter starved of funds and beset by
internal bickering and the former losing their purpose under the
new wave of corporate management.

The Murdoch empire can expect a similar fate when its present
manic boss either dies or relinquishes power; for the moment he
retains such iron-fisted control over his products as to deny any
semblance of independent thought.

Interestingly, Murdoch's flagship, The Australian, took
the accusations seriously enough to print extracts from the essays
by Robert Manne and David McKnight and to produce an indignant
rebuttal, which was accepted readily enough by the faithful but was
seen by the cynics as an exercise in tokenism and sophistry.

Still, the demonstration that our most powerful expatriate is
still occasionally sensitive to criticism in his former home (or at
least some of his supposedly cowed editors are) can only be good
news; perhaps things aren't quite as dire as Manne and his fellow
Jeremiahs believe.

However, they are quite dire enough. Perhaps the most
comprehensive analysis in the book comes from Eric Beecher, who has
scaled the heights of both the Fairfax and the Murdoch
organisations and is now involved in a number of fringe
publications principally on line.

Beecher traverses some familiar ground; traditional journalism,
even - perhaps especially - at the quality end is no longer
regarded as either credible or relevant by most Australians,
particularly those under 40.

As a result, newspapers are dumbing down and proprietors are
treating what was once seen as something of a public trust as just
another business. Worst of all, the advertising base, led by the
classifieds, the rivers of gold that used to fund the quality
press, is migrating to the internet, stymieing any hope of a return
to the good old days.

The situation appears hopeless, but not desperate, because the
public seems not to care. David Marr cites the ongoing issue of
asylum seekers as an instance where the clear dereliction of the
media has been matched by the callous indifference of its audience.
Guy Rundle suggests that this is part of a more general cultural
change in which the neo-conservative right has become the paramount
force in Australia.

It is certainly true that the Howard years have produced a major
shift in attitudes, and that even the broadsheets are now dominated
by conservative columnists: there is no longer a shortage of
right-wing Phillip Adamses. But the problem goes deeper: journalism
itself has become more cautious, more ready to toe the line.

Admittedly the circumstances have changed: the totalitarian grip
John Howard exerts over the control of information, not just from
within his government but throughout the public service and any
institution remotely dependent on it is unprecedented. And as I
have written elsewhere, the layout of parliament house is itself a
serious impediment to news gathering.

But even within these limits there seems to be a reluctance by
most journalists to challenge politicians who try to hide behind
weaselly phrases such as "operational matters", "commercial in
confidence", and the old one-size-fits-all, "national
security".

As Labor speech writer Dennis Glover points out, the current
press gallery can hardly be described as pro-Labor, although it
obviously contains a few lefties. Equally, the presence of a few
Tories does not make it pro-coalition. The problem is that it isn't
pro-anything much these days; the fire has gone out of its
belly.

In common with the rest of the media, journalism has become a
career rather than a calling. In the quality press you will still
find much good writing, and perhaps too much clever writing; but
you will find very little passionate writing. Along with the
advertising, it is migrating to the internet; but the internet is
still a work in progress. It will be a long time before it becomes
the solution rather than the problem, if it ever does.

In the meantime we are stuck with the media, singular or plural.
We can rightly attack their failings, but it is worth asking
whether, through our own apathy, we are also failing them.